http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2014.984936#abstract At the time of writing, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is conducting an investigation of the United Kingdom under the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This, together with the upcoming State reporting process, has made the UK disability movement more aware than ever that the United Nations can play a positive role in the struggle for disability rights. Similar processes have occurred in the other State Parties to the Convention that have been investigated or made their reports. Slowly, the wheels of international human rights are turning, and advancing the disability rights agenda across the world. This invaluable book is the first to explore the background to the treaty and the drafting process that resulted in this innovative Convention. Human Rights and Disability Advocacy has a stellar list of contributors, including Ambassador Don MacKay, Professor Ron McCallum, Liisa Kauppinen, Gerison Lansdown, and many other people who were intimately involved in the negotiations that lead to the CRPD. Chapters explore sectoral issues - women, children, Deaf people, people with intellectual disabilities - as well as technical issue about the drafting. The reader gets an insight into how choices were made in practice - for example, Mi Yeon Kim explains the dilemma about whether to mainstream gender throughout the CRPD or whether to have a separate Article on women and girls. Gerison Lansdown discusses how the opposition of national delegations to having an article specifically on children was eventually overcome. Civil society was involved in drafting the CRPD to a far greater extent than in any previous international treaty, an example of what the editors call 'the new diplomacy'. In the negotiations, the trade-offs between different impairment groups - people with mental health conditions, Deaf people, people with intellectual disability - led to the accommodation of competing positions, which do not always translate straightforwardly into policy and practice. For example, Article 24 on education establishes a right to inclusive education, but it does not prohibit special schools. Both sides of the debate describe it here as a success. But is the compromise a weakness or a strength of the CRPD? It is both clichéd and inaccurate to say that the CRPD creates no new rights. As many authors here state, the CRPD is legally innovative in several ways. For example, it further develops the connection between legal and civil rights ('freedom from') and social, cultural and economic rights ('freedom to ...'). Not only are both approaches contained within the same treaty, but they are also entwined within the same articles. It is the first-ever international treaty to mention sign language. The CRPD also enshrines the requirement to respect difference (Article 3d), while at the same time it promotes a strong social model understanding of disability. The chapter by Heidi Forrest and Phillip French about the contrast between Australian government and Australian disability movement interventions grows a deeper understanding of the diplomacy involved. But overall, the reader gets a strong sense of the variety of non-governmental organisations who were lobbying hard for their political goals, but only an occasional glimpse of the ways in which some countries were blocking certain positions. For example, conservative Islamic and Catholic countries blocked more liberal formulations about sexuality and reproductive rights. Moreover, while the tensions between disabled people's organisations inside and outside the International Disability Caucus are a theme throughout the book, only in the last chapter is the question of disability movement democracy raised. An interesting underlying question is whether the leaders of the global disability movement were truly representing the voices of the billion disabled people in the world, particularly those of the Global South. There are also omissions from the CRPD, some of which are explored here. The poorest of the poor did not have a voice in the negotiations: Huhana Hickey contributes a powerful chapter on indigenous people with disability, an issue absent from the CRPD with the sole exception of the Preamble. Another group who are not adequately discussed in the CRPD are family members of people with disabilities: parents of disabled children, for example, or carers of elderly people with disability. Anna MacQuarrie and Connie Laurin-Bowie of Inclusion International here suggest that the mention in the Preamble (paragraph x) represents a victory for families who support people with intellectual disabilities. I would read the lack of either a substantive Article or any mention of caregivers as a shortcoming of the CRPD. In conclusion, Human Rights and Disability Advocacy is an excellent book that gives a flavour of the Treaty negotiations and will certainly help scholars and advocates to understand the CRPD better. However, the contributors lack the distance and objectivity needed to generate a truly balanced critique of a Convention that in my opinion is as frustrating as it is innovative. Above all, there is a huge gap between having a Treaty and achieving human rights. While latter chapters of this collection discuss monitoring CRPD implementation and the role of National Human Rights Institutions, it is beyond the scope of the book to discuss the impact of the CRPD in practical terms. One of the most moving contributions to this collection is from Lex Grandia, an advocate for deaf-blind people. His very personal chapter concludes: To solve the problems of poverty is very complicated: to break the isolation will take years and years of work. Low expectations need to be changed into images of rights and prosperity. That is what I will try to do now. (156) His words apply to all disabled people, not only to people who are deaf-blind, and highlight how much there is now to be done. Sadly, Lex Grandia died in 2012, and so it is left for the rest of us to try and achieve his vision. Tom Shakespeare University of East Anglia, UK [email protected] (c) 2014, Tom Shakespeare
-- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
